Understand Native Speakers: TED talk on simplifying your life [+Worksheet]

Have you ever wished you could understand native speakers better.
And that could watch and learn from some of the great videos available in English?
Have you ever felt like you don’t have a lot of time?

Then today’s lesson is for you–we’ll watch a video on time-management together in English! And I’ll help you understand–and practice understanding native speakers.

Plus you’ll learn some great new Business English expressions.

To hear the clips I mention in this blog post and practice your listening, be sure to watch my video lesson here.

Today, we’ll watch a TED-talk together. It’s called: How to gain control of your free time by author Laura Vanderkam.

Do you ever wish you could gain control or take control of your free time?
Do you wish you could spend more time doing something important to you?

Here is your chance to do it–while becoming better at Business English…

Get the worksheet to test what you learn in this lesson!

Did you know that I’ve made a worksheet to go with this lesson so that you can practice everything you see here today? I want you to make this part of the English you actually use in real life!

GET THE WORKSHEET: Make sure you practice these expressions so you can use them in real life with this worksheet made for you by a Neurolanguage coach.

Index:

1. Why saving time is not as important as we think!
2. Treat your priorities like emergencies.
3. What are your priorities anyway?
4. Break your big goals into small steps–and schedule them!

1. Why saving time is not as important as we think!

One thing I love about this video is that it doesn’t focus on the strange ways people sometimes think you should save time like:

Cooking your food a little less to save a few minutes.
or
Recording your favorite shows and skipping commercials when you watch TV.

Here’s what Laura Vanderkam had to say in the TED talk:

“You know another way to find 32 minutes to exercise? Don’t watch two hours of TV a day, right?”

Notice that this is exactly the way a native speaker might phrase this. She is being funny…and a little sarcastic.  And if you check out the video, you’ll hear the intonation too.

So, is spending less time cooking food and watching commercials enough to help?
Can we “save time” by being faster and more efficient? And then find time for all the things we really want to do?

Not according to Vanderkam:

“We don’t build the lives we want by saving time. We build the lives we want, and then time saves itself.”

Also check out my lesson: Understand a Real-Life Video in English & Learn about Habits and Motivation.

2. Treat your priorities like emergencies.

If you think about it, we can find time for things that are really important–our priorities.

For example, in the TED Talk, one busy woman’s water heater breaks–and she changes her schedule to get it fixed.

What’s a water heater? You know, that giant metal balloon in your house that heats the water you use to take a shower? Yes, that!
A broken water heater means no hot shower…and probably also water all over your house–a disaster!! Something to fix. Now!

Have you ever had an emergency like that?
No more hot water, or another surprise that made you find a lot of extra hours in your week? You know, a problem you had to take care of right away?

Did you find the time to solve your problem–fast?
What else could you find time for if you made it a priority?

GET THE WORKSHEET: Make sure you practice these expressions so you can use them in real life with this worksheet made for you by a Neurolanguage coach.

3. What are your priorities anyway?

Vanderkam recommends treating your priorities–or your most important goals–like emergencies:

“The key to time management is treating our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater. So how do we do that? How do we treat our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater? Well, first we need to figure out what they are.”

In other words, if we treat something like an emergency–we act like it’s important and we need to find time for it–now!

And we need to figure out–or think about and decide what our priorities are.

So how do you do that exactly?

I love Vanderkam’s suggestion.

Can you imagine doing a performance review–for yourself?
You know, when you look back at the year and decide what went well at work…
And where you’d like to improve?

But what if you imagined a great performance review for NEXT YEAR?
Here is what Vanderkam recommends:

“So I want you to pretend it’s the end of next year. You’re giving yourself a performance review, and it has been an absolutely amazing year for you professionally. What three to five things did you do that made it so amazing? So you can write next year’s performance review now.”

What does your amazing year look like next year? Can you come up with 6-10 goals for this year?

4. Break your big goals into small steps–and schedule them!

Once you know what your big goals are, Vanderkam says…

“We need to break these down into doable steps.”

Look at those great expressions! It just means make your goals smaller and easy to do now.

“And then — this is key — we treat our priorities as the equivalent of that broken water heater, by putting them into our schedules first. We do this by thinking through our weeks before we are in them.”

Do you have a priority you could treat like an emergency?
And if so, what could you add to your schedule for next week to make sure you find the time for what really matters?

For example, if your goal is understanding native-speakers in English, maybe you’ll schedule 15 minutes to watch a video next week…

Also check out my lesson: Understand a Real-Life Video in English: Focus on Rewards!

Take the next step: Improve your English in the comments

The best way to become more confident using Business English is to practice!

Here’s your Confidence Challenge for this week:

• What matters to you right now? How can you add that to your schedule next week–even for 15 minutes?
• Let me know in the comments below.

If you learned something from this lesson, please share it with your coworkers & friends. You can send your message to them in English for more practice!

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Become more fluent & comfortable in conversations

If you would like to take the next step with me, discover my Faster Fluency Conversation Club Membership Program!

It helps you become more confident speaking in conversations, and get a lot more vocabulary on many different topics! And it’s a fabulous community of “English buddies” from around the world!

TIP: Use the code FFCC40 to save -40% off your 1st month of membership! 

More details at

https://mybusinessenglishcourses.com/faster-fluency-conversation-club/join-now

Can’t wait to see you in the Club,
Christina